Little did I realize I was still on the Rock n Roll Highway, but it wasn’t in my previous glamorous role as a major-label music publishing executive. Instead of managing the careers of tomorrow’s hitmakers, I was their limo driver.
There’s an old show business joke.
A man works for the circus cleaning up after the elephants during parades. Miserable and exhausted, he complains to a friend about the grueling, filthy work.
His friend asks, “Why don’t you quit and find a normal job?”
The worker looks at him in disbelief.
“What? And give up show business?”
I understood that joke better than I ever expected.
It was graduation night for high school seniors in Minneapolis. My carload of girls, trying to be Janet Jackson’s backup singers, asked me a question before ending their run.
“What else have you done besides drive a limo?”
“I signed artists to record contracts.”
She laughed, convinced I was joking. Apparently my sense of humor was worth an extra ten-dollar tip.
Only later did I understand what Louie Perez of Los Lobos meant when he said:
“I went from being a Grammy Award-winning artist… fifteen minutes later pushing a cart in Ralphs Market and buying Pampers.”
One career had ended.
Another had quietly begun.
I was about ready to call it quits when limo headquarters buzzed me with another assignment. Normally dispatch gave me nothing more than an address and a pickup time.
This time they added something unusual.
“VIPs from the Kingdom of Purple.”
I had no idea what that meant.
I headed toward Chanhassen.
I pulled up to a purple-painted house with a large purple windmill standing in the backyard. The porch light came on and two people walked out. As always, I stepped from the driver’s seat and opened the rear limo door.
Then I recognized my passengers.
Prince.
And Carmen Electra.
I had never met Prince up close before. His real height wasn’t hidden by platform shoes. I stood five feet seven. The top of his head barely reached my chin.
He smiled and thanked me for opening the door.
I loved the purple suit. It looked like Disney had collided with an adult fantasy.
Carmen Electra looked good in anything.
She followed Prince into the back seat, and I climbed into the driver’s seat. The perfume inside the limo was thicker than pink cotton candy at the Minnesota State Fair on a hot summer night.
“Where would you like to go, Mr. Prince?”
I caught myself gripping the steering wheel.
I already knew stories about Prince because my wife’s cousin, St. Paul Peterson, had been the lead singer of one of Prince’s side projects, The Family. Other relatives had toured with him or worked around Paisley Park. I had heard enough stories to know there was always another side to the Purple Kingdom.
“First Avenue. Backstage door.”
Off we went.
At first, Prince and Electra chatted about celebrity gossip that probably would have filled the pages of a pop fan magazine.
Then the conversation shifted.
Business.
Suddenly my ears became an imaginary French horn.
I had forgotten to raise the Vanity 6-style privacy glass between the front and back seats.
Prince never noticed.
For the next few minutes I wasn’t a limo driver.
I was an undercover music journalist.
Little did Prince know I had once worked as a major-label talent scout, producer, and artist development executive for PolyGram International Music Publishing.
I had occupied the same office later used by his manager, Owen Husney.
I had once received a $20,000 royalty check intended for Jesse Johnson’s contribution to the Purple Rain soundtrack.
And I had heard photographer Allen Beaulieu complain more than once that Prince had treated him unfairly.
The music business is a surprisingly small neighborhood.
Questions started bouncing around my head like silver pinballs.
What was Prince really like?
Did artists go behind his back the way they had gone behind mine?
Why had he fallen out with so many talented people?
Did success harden him?
Was Paisley Park really “The Plantation,” as insiders sometimes called it?
Did he ever imagine collecting food stamps?
Did he ever wonder where it all might end?
Of course, I asked none of them.
Some stories are better overheard than interrupted.
Instead, I listened.
“Do you like the name of my new band, ‘The New Power Generation?’” Prince asked.
“It’s cute,” Electra giggled. “Like you.”
Prince sighed.
“I’m fed up with my record company. Warner Bros. wants to control everything I do. They’re slave drivers…”
Then came the sentence that would later make headlines around the world.
He was already imagining giving away the name the world knew him by.
“What will you do without your name?” she asked.
“What will I do without you?” Prince shot back.
I glanced into the rearview mirror.
They were making out.
It didn’t seem like the right moment to ask for a job.
So I kept driving, humming “Raspberry Beret” to myself.
I pulled the stretch limo into the garage behind First Avenue.
Security escorted the royal couple upstairs to Prince’s private booth.
Then reality returned.
“Hey… how do I get paid?”
“Figure it out,” one of the guards shrugged.
The next day I called Paisley Park.
The manager apologized.
A check arrived covering the limousine bill.
There was another check.
Five hundred dollars.
Signed by Prince.
Next to his signature he drew a little glyph.
I got the money.
I missed the autograph.
It was the most money I ever made driving a limousine.
Years later Prince died.
With him seemed to disappear more than a musician.
The parties.
The deals.
The ambition.
The Minneapolis Sound.
An entire cultural moment that once felt permanent slowly became memory.
What rained down afterward wasn’t purple.
It was nostalgia.
And for those of us who had lived somewhere along that stretch of the Rock n Roll Highway, it felt like the end of an era